PLAQUEMINE — Judge Alvin Batiste Jr., who has served as a judge in the 18th JDC for 23 years, is retiring, WBRZ learned Thursday. 

Batiste is set to retire from his bench serving the people of West Baton Rouge, Pointe Coupee and Iberville parishes at the end of the month.

The 70-year-old judge began his legal career in the 1980s as an officer and lawyer for the United States Navy Judge Advocate General Corp. Following his 1985 honorable discharge, he worked as an East Baton Rouge Parish public defender and as an assistant attorney general for the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality.

Batiste then moved to Iberville where he opened a law firm with his late wife before being elected judge in Iberville Parish in 2002, running unopposed for the next two decades.  

Louisiana law dictates every state judge must retire at the age of 70.